Editorial Comment On Greekfest

An Investigation Is Warranted

September 21, 1989|By Detroit Free Press

It's important that the U.S. Justice Department is studying videotapes of the recent disturbances in Virginia Beach to determine whether local police, Virginia state troopers, and the Virginia National Guard used excessive force. The questions that inevitably have arisen from the incidents last weekend in the East Coast resort demand answers.

A spokeswoman for the department said "it's very possible" the FBI and the civil rights division might open full-scale inquiries into allegations that young blacks were brutalized by law enforcement officials in the oceanfront community. Such investigations also might remove the blot the incidents have caused on the reputation of students from predominantly black colleges along the East Coast. Some news accounts have blamed the students - many of them fraternity and sorority members gathered for Greekfest, an annual end-of-summer celebration - for the rock-throwing and looting. They, however, have insisted that non-students caused the trouble.

Comparisons have been made between Greekfest and the annual trek of young people to Ft. Lauderdale for spring vacation. The differences, though, are glaring - and troubling. The Justice Department is the right agency to try to sort out the conflicting reports of what happened.